


Four Seconds

by Fuhadeza



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15819612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuhadeza/pseuds/Fuhadeza
Summary: ‘Why do you call her Widow? Why give her a nickname?’She searched his face for the meaning behind the question. ‘Because I’d rather remember what Talon did to her,’ she said at last, ‘and not what they make her do for them.’





	Four Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> If I were a different kind of writer, this would be at least 30,000 words long. But I'm not, so instead have this series of vignettes! I think it just about manages to bring something new to the table, but with the sheer quantity of widowtracer out there, I'd settle for doing something old in a slightly new way...

‘She's hot.’

‘Be quiet.’

‘I see why you spend all day staring down a scope at her.’

‘A terrible tragedy.’ Widowmaker caressed the trigger guard of her rifle. ‘Someone adjusted the tension of the trigger incorrectly. It went off too easily. Poor little Sombra was right in the line of fire.’

‘Right in the line of fire, two miles away in HQ. Don’t think Gabe is gonna fall for that one again, chica.’

‘Do you know what the record for a successful sniper shot is?’

Finally, there was silence. ‘Less than two miles?’ Sombra said eventually.

Widowmaker smiled.

The threat of violence only ever went so far. ‘I’m just saying,’ Sombra said a few minutes later, the confidence back in her voice, ‘the two of you end up chasing each other around rooftops all night anyway, does anyone really care how you actually keep her occupied—’

‘Sauvez-moi de cet imbécile.’

‘Ooh, French! Yo puedo ser jodona también, perra—’

All at once, Widowmaker’s attention was focused down the scope. ‘Be quiet,’ she said again, cutting off the stream of Spanish over her comms. ‘She’s onto me.’

*

It was near dawn when Tracer dragged herself into the debriefing. If it could be called that: there was Winston, in his office, the hole in the window still unpatched, and there she was, rattling off the details of the night’s engagement.

‘And it’s all so bloody frustrating,’ she said when she was done, because it was late—early—and would it kill Talon to run an operation during the day?

Winston frowned, that expression of concern that was liable to terrify people who didn’t know him and hadn’t previously realised the extent of gorilla dentition. ‘I thought it went rather well.’

‘Yeah. I guess.’ In truth the details had all blurred these past few weeks, and she could barely remember what objective Talon had or hadn’t achieved. ‘Ever since she turned up, I feel like all I’ve managed to do is fight a neverending stalemate.’

Winston was quiet for a few seconds. ‘You mean Widowmaker.’

‘Who else?’

‘Lena—’

‘I know,’ she cut him off, slumping back in her chair. ‘I know. If we let Widow run unchecked, she’s deadlier than any ten other agents they can throw at us. I know.’

‘It’s only while we’re short-handed,’ he said gently. ‘You’re the only one who can shut her down effectively.’

‘I know, big guy. I shouldn’t complain. I just want to do something positive again, y’know? Something other than… cancelling her out.’

‘Well, get some rest,’ Winston said. ‘Give Emily my regards.’ His smiles were even more alarming than his frowns.

Lena groaned. ‘Maybe that’s it. Maybe I just need to wake up next to my girlfriend again.’

She was halfway to the door when Winston said, ‘Lena?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Why do you call her Widow? Why give her a nickname?’

She searched his face for the meaning behind the question. ‘Because I’d rather remember what Talon did to her,’ she said at last, ‘and not what they make her do for them.’

*

‘You were kidding, right?’

Widowmaker finished putting her rifle away before turning to her bed, where Sombra had appeared out of thin air.

‘You couldn’t actually have made that shot.’

There was nothing active camouflage could do against infrared, and Widowmaker had noted with detached amusement that Sombra had moved away from the windows during their latest mission. ‘Of course not,’ she said.

Sombra grinned. ‘I knew it. I knew you were pulling my leg.’ She leaned back against the wall and crossed her legs, neatly taking up the entire surface area of the bed. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening?’ She waggled her eyebrows.

‘How could I fail to enjoy an evening with your voice keeping me company.’ It was occasionally advantageous, Widowmaker reflected, to keep the people around her in the dark as to whether or not she possessed a sense of humour.

Sombra was off-balance. ‘Well, obviously,’ she said. ‘But I meant—’

‘Perhaps you should find her yourself,’ Widowmaker said, implacable. ‘She might even be interested. She has a girlfriend. On the other hand’—she spread her arms apologetically—‘she already has a girlfriend.’

‘How on Earth do you know that?’ Sombra actually sounded impressed. ‘I mean, obviously I knew that, but…’

Widowmaker allowed herself a predatory smile, the only kind that anyone ever expected from her. ‘Well, Olivia,’ she said, ‘I spend all day staring down a scope at her.’

Sombra winced, as she always did when she was reminded that Widowmaker knew her real name. ‘I had that coming?’ she said, as if the very concept could only be uttered with a question mark.

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow.

‘But, come on, you have to admit,’ Sombra hurried on, ‘you’ve had her pinned down three times in the last two weeks, and you know by now that doesn’t work, she just does her time reversal thing and gets out.’

‘And you were doing so well, mon amie.’

‘Ha! If I’m your friend, you can tell me why you keep doing that.’

‘Why do you care?’

Sombra looked at her as if she’d asked what colour the sky was. ‘Being nosy is what I do. Literally. That’s my job. And you’re a special case. I can just ask you, no hacking required.’

Widowmaker cocked her head. ‘Her job is to distract me,’ she said. ‘That being the case, I see no reason why I shouldn’t be… distracting… in turn.’

Sombra narrowed her eyes at her. ‘It is extremely difficult,’ she said after a few seconds of consideration, ‘to tell when you’re flirting with someone, do you know that?’

*

The next week, for the first time, Tracer got the drop on her very own private nemesis. She executed it perfectly: a leap from the rafters of the belltower, knocking the rifle out of Widow’s hands and emptying two magazines into it before the sniper even knew what had happened, then a blink away to safety.

That was the idea. Widow reacted far faster than she’d thought possible, though, whipping one arm around, and just as Tracer thought she’d made a clean escape, her pistols were suddenly gone and she stumbled out of the blink, barely skidding to a stop before she pitched right over the edge. She looked in disbelief at Widow, who was picking up the pistols with an air of extreme disinterest, the cable of her grappling hook neatly passing through both trigger guards. Attached to another person like that, there had been too much mass to take with her through the blink.

‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered, too surprised to feel anything as rational as fear. ‘How did you do that?’

‘I am the world’s greatest sniper,’ Widow said, leaning against the railing. In her cold French accent, it was nothing more than a statement of fact. ‘Did you think disabling my rifle would change that?’ The cable retracted back into her wrist launcher, and she examined both pistols, slender fingers handling the guns with the sort of care an appraiser might show a piece of jewellery.

Tracer kept her eyes on the pistols. ‘What now?’ she said.

‘Now? Nothing.’ She jerked her head at the ground below. ‘Down there your friends and mine are getting in each other’s way, and they expect nothing from the two of us but to keep each other occupied. So.’ She held up the pistols. ‘I will keep these. You can have them back in a few hours. Until then, leave, stay, it is all the same to me.’

‘Why are you—’ Tracer blinked forward mid-sentence, already reaching out to snatch her guns back, but between one moment and the next Widow had moved, and instead she came face to face with the barrel of her own pistol.

‘You are faster than me, ma petit puce, but I do not need speed when you are so easy to read.’ Widow lowered the gun. ‘Don’t you find it exhausting?’ she said softly, and Tracer found herself leaning forward to hear the words. ‘Night after night, we accomplish absolutely nothing. Just this once, I will choose peace, I think.’

Tracer swallowed. She could not reconcile this quiet, philosophical woman with the image of the ice-cold assassin. Carefully she sat down, out of arm’s reach but close enough to signify companionship. Widow smiled, settled against the railing opposite her, and closed her eyes.

‘Who were you aiming at?’ Tracer blurted, the question wrestling free before she could think it through. ‘In King’s Row,’ she added, needlessly but wanting more words to fill the space between them.

Widow opened alien eyes. ‘I was made to complete my mission, always.’

‘So I could have saved him,’ Tracer whispered, wishing she could have the words back. ‘If I’d just stayed where I was.’

Widow shifted, stretching one long leg out in front of her. ‘The bullet would have gone right through you,’ she said. ‘It would have hit Mondatta regardless. He would be dead regardless, and you would be dead or trapped somewhere between moments.’

‘How can you know that?’

‘I never miss a shot,’ Widow said, but her voice made a curse of the boast. ‘I knew I could never hit you. So I aimed at him.’

‘How is that an answer?’ Tracer said, her voice rising above the rooftops. Those eyes were old friends, populating her nightmares alongside the mocking voice of the woman who sat perfectly still before her. ‘Why?’

Long past the time Tracer had given up on getting an answer, Widow said, ‘imagine being born again. Imagine being told your purpose was to kill. Imagine knowing nothing else, no childhood, no context. Nothing but that one, single, imperative.’ She looked at Tracer with expressionless eyes. ‘How can I possibly explain my actions when I have no framework in which to place them?’

Tracer’s heart was beating wildly, and she couldn’t say why. ‘You’re not her, are you?’ she said. ‘Only—some of the others still talk about saving her. From Talon. Bringing her back.’

Widow smiled, sardonic and defensive. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I am not Amélie Lacroix.’

‘Then who are you?’

‘I am Widowmaker. I am what they made me. But they cannot define me.’

‘Widow,’ Tracer said, wonderingly, ‘you don’t want to kill me, do you?’

‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ Widow said. Her lips quirked upwards. ‘After all, you are not married.’

‘I’m not—was that a joke?’ The sheer unlikeliness of the occurrence drowned out the part of her that might have worried about Talon’s apparent knowledge of her marital status.

‘Is that so surprising, ma chérie?’ Widow leaned forward and something in her demeanour changed: her eyes flared with the promise of heat, and the hand she brought to Tracer’s cheek made her shiver with more than just the cold of it.

‘Why do you do that?’ Tracer got out, trying to put the outline of Widow’s body out of her mind.

Widow smiled a predatory smile. ‘Do what?’

There was a blush rising in her cheeks despite her best efforts. ‘The—seduction. Why do you dress the way you do? Why call me your darling? You must know I like women. Are you trying to get a rise out of me?’

Widow drew back, and instantly she was unreadable again, her bodysuit a fact and not an enticement, the fire in her eyes doused. Nothing but the smallest smile betrayed the change. ‘Because it is expected,’ she said. ‘It is so much easier to surprise people if you meet their expectations first.’

‘It’s fake, then,’ Tracer said, her heart finally slowing down again.

Widow raised one shoulder in an elegant half-shrug. ‘I must correct you on one point. "Chérie" is not exclusively a term of romance. That part is real.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I might ask you why you insist on calling everyone “love”.’

Tracer ignored the jab. ‘What d’you mean, it’s real?’

‘It would be easy to say you make me feel alive,’ Widow said, ‘but then I would be succumbing to the expected again. No. You are my life.’ She laughed. ‘It sounds pathetic, does it not?’

Tracer was long past wondering how she possibly could have ended up in the middle of this conversation. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I have a friend,’ Widow said. ‘She is a—freelancer, shall we say. She gave me the idea tonight.’ Again, that slight quirk of her mouth. ‘I have no doubt she’d be delighted to see us here like this. You and she… you are the seeds from which I must grow my life. My own framework. Right now, you are the only two people in the whole world who look at me and see a person, I think.’

Tracer licked her lips. ‘But I hated you. For months, I hated you.’

‘You asked why. You did not treat me as a machine. You gave me the gift of my own motives. Can you see how dear that would be to me?’

‘I’m not—I mean, I don’t know how to…’

‘Do not worry. I want nothing from you that you have not already given.’ Widow took one of Tracer’s hands in hers, and Tracer glanced down in surprise when she felt the familiar shape of one of her pistols. She hefted it, feeling by its weight that it was still loaded. She returned it to its holster, then repeated the motion as Widow handed over the other.

‘I think… I think I have to go now, if that’s all right by you.’

‘I will not keep you.’

‘One thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘I assume you know my name. My real name, I mean.’

‘Of course.’

Tracer took a breath. ‘It’s yours, if you want it.’

Widow nodded. ‘A question of my own, then, if you’ll permit it.’

Tracer couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Go right ahead, luv.’

‘Why do you call me Widow?’

All at once Lena felt wrung out. ‘I thought I knew who you were. In my head it was all so simple. Turns out I was wrong.’ She raised her hand in a tired salute. ‘Till next time, Widowmaker.’

Across from her, the woman who was not Amélie Lacroix smiled. ‘Adieu, Lena.’

*

Lena had the chronal accelerator off her and stashed by the door before it had even finished closing. ‘Emily?’ she called. She’d lost track of time so badly she couldn’t tell whether her girlfriend ought to be home or not.

‘In here.’

Lena stuck her head around the living room door. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’

‘Sure. We’re out of decaf, though.’

‘Decaf isn’t real tea anyway.’ Lena left the door open and absconded to the kitchen. The kettle could use descaling, she noted, then filled it anyway.

‘What happened?’ Emily asked from the living room. ‘You look like you got proper smashed last night.’

‘Funny you should mention it, love. I actually spent most of the night sitting on a roof.’ The remaining teabags were scattered across several nearly empty boxes. Lena consolidated them, chose two, and poured.

Emily appeared at the door. ‘Hey. Everything okay?’

Lena gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Nothing to worry about. My emotions got a bit of a work out tonight, that’s all. Lovely change of pace, thinking about it.’

‘I always say you spend too much effort on feeling things. You want to talk about it?’

Lena blew out a breath. ‘Yeah.’ She took out the teabags, added a dash of milk to both mugs and a spoon of sugar to hers. ‘C’mon. I need to lie down.’

They ended up on the couch, Lena’s legs propped up on Emily’s lap, the mug steaming pleasantly where she balanced it on her stomach. ‘I think Widowmaker was flirting with me tonight,’ she said, just as Emily raised her mug to her lips.

Hot tea sprayed everywhere. ‘ _What?_ ’

‘Also, I think she might want to defect, maybe? But I thought you’d like the other thing more.’

‘Widowmaker,’ Emily said. ‘The assassin. Wanted by Interpol. Brainwashed Frenchwoman. That Widowmaker.’

‘That’s the one. ‘Cept I think she might not be brainwashed after all, is the thing.’

Emily dabbed at her shirt. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

Lena told her. ‘It’s a pretty story, I know. Redemption and all. But, well, I think maybe there’s something there, y’know? Her story isn’t as simple as we all think it is, maybe.’

‘And you think you can get her to turn on Talon.’

Lena shrugged. ‘Not even that. I think she’s looking for a way out, and I don’t wanna be the one to slam that door in her face.’

Emily’s eyes were on her, calm and steady. ‘That doesn’t change the fact she’s killed a lot of people. She killed one of your heroes, Lena.’ From her, it wasn’t a challenge: just a reminder.

Lena stared at the milky surface of her tea. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I’m not naïve, love. Morrison has things to answer for. It wasn’t just Reyes back then, y’know, someone had to sign off. Hell, I know Jesse has done some fucked up shit in his time, and I _like_ Jesse. I think of him as a friend.’ She smiled a little. ‘If he can get a redemption thing going, it seems a bit hypocritical to deny someone else just ‘cause she plays for the other team.’

‘I love you,’ Emily said suddenly, as if it had just occurred to her.

‘Why’s that, then?’

‘Because, even if it all ends up being a ploy of some kind, you’re sitting here right now and you’re thinking that maybe you could forgive her. And you absolutely wouldn’t have to, because even if she’s one hundred percent sincere she still hurt _you_. But still, you would. And I love that.’

Lena found that she was blushing. ‘Bloody hell, Em, you really know how to ambush someone.’

Emily laughed. ‘I can’t keep up with your wit, I have to get the points in somehow.’

‘My wit, eh?’

‘Well, I say that, really it’s more like being endearingly annoying.’

‘Endearingly annoying, eh?’

‘If you say “eh” one more time I’m going to add it to that list of things you’re not allowed to say.’

Lena grinned. ‘A list? Let’s have a butcher’s then, eh, luv?’

‘Oh my God, Lena, don’t do that—’

‘Do what, guvna?’

‘I swear by all that is holy—’

‘Cor, I didn’t even notice. Right good job you’ve done civilising me, innit. Bruv.’

‘Oh, sure, now you’re from South London—’

‘I’m surprised you can even tell the difference, sweet little Northern girl like you—’

‘I swear I will start calling everyone ‘bird’ again—’

‘Is Newcastle even large enough to have a south, or is it all kinda middle Newcastle—’

Emily shut her up. Later, curled up on the couch, she said: ‘I trust you, Lena. I know telling you to be careful doesn’t do much, but… take care of yourself. Trust yourself, too.’

‘Always do,’ Lena said, smothering a yawn and pressing herself closer against Emily’s side. ‘You make it very easy, y’know. You trust me, so I trust me. Sharing the load. Like a… like an ox. Oxen.’ She paused, yawned again. ‘I’m not making sense, am I?’

Emily tangled one hand in the mess of Lena’s hair. ‘No less sense than usual, love.’

*

To the world at large it would come to be known as the Siberian Incident. Details were sparse: a city in the tundra, empty and decaying; an opaque goal, washed away on the tides of history; the factional infighting that tore Talon apart.

To the woman who perpetrated it, it was the day she let the darkness consume her. It was a baptism in blood and terror, undertaken for the chance that there might be light at the end of it.

And for those few who were not there, but who knew what had occurred nonetheless? To them, it was the day the Widowmaker turned on her creators.

*

_‘I can get you the dropship,’_ Sombra’s voice said in her ear. _‘And I can get you a comms blackout. Then it’s up to you.’_

Widowmaker did not look up. She was seated in the pilot’s seat, ostensibly keeping an eye on the autonomous flight protocols. The cameras behind her regarded the empty dropship with cyclopean intensity.

Beneath, Russian wilderness slid past with deceptive speed.

‘And after? Can you get me to Gibraltar?’

When it came, the response was uncharacteristically hesitant. _‘I think so. But their AI is a piece of work. She’s more than capable of taking the dropship out before you get within fifty miles. I wouldn’t want your gorgeous face splattered all over Spain, eh, chica?’_ There it was, after all: the cheerful bravado Sombra plastered on over her anxieties.

‘I will take my chances.’ A light blinked on an instrument panel to her left: preliminary warning. ETA 20 minutes.

_‘Look. Even if I get you there in one piece. Are you sure it’ll go like you think?’_

‘What choice do I have?’

Sombra’s mouth was too close to her mic. Her sigh rattled static through the comms. _‘I know.’_ She was quiet for several seconds. _‘Remember. I still need Gabe._ ’

‘I will not harm him.’

_‘Good. Then… good luck.’_

Widowmaker felt the moment the cameras went offline. It was as if hostile territory had suddenly transformed into friendly, and the oppressive weight of someone’s anonymous scrutiny removed. ‘Thank you, Olivia,’ she said.

She could imagine Sombra’s grimace perfectly. _‘It’s not fair. I wish you had a secret name.’_

Widowmaker’s lips quirked. ‘Perhaps the secret lies in the fact that I do not.’

_‘Ugh. Like that’s the same.’_ Another beat, then _‘do me a favour, chica. Don’t die.’_

‘I make no promises.’

Sombra was silent a long time. ‘ _Then promise me this. If you make it, you’re taking me out to dinner.’_

Widowmaker smiled for the last time in her second life. ‘Ce serait avec plaisir, ma chérie.’

*

Lena woke up and knew immediately there was someone else in the room with her.

‘Lights,’ she said, instinct kicking in. Nothing happened. She sat bolt upright, willing her eyes to adapt to the dark. Her chronal accelerator blinked its way through a charge cycle, the faint blue ring barely illuminating an inch of radius—but there, by the door, the arachnid cluster of red lights she’d learnt to spot from a hundred yards away.

Lena knew by now there were two ways to respond to such a situation. To show fear was to create a cause for fear. Instead, she said, ‘Bloody fuckin’ ‘ell, how did you get in ‘ere?’ Sleep slurred her aitches even more than usual, and the words came out like a parody of herself. She winced.

‘Are you certain that is the correct Overwatch protocol for responding to an intruder?’

‘You want Tracer, you can come back in the morning. At’—she glanced at the glowing digits on her bedside table—‘at three am, you’re getting Lena bleedin’ Oxton.’

‘I think,’ Widowmaker said, and this time the strain in her voice registered in the part of Lena’s mind that was fully awake. ‘I think I have had enough blood tonight.’

Lena froze. She reached out and hit the manual switch above her bed with one tentative hand, then squinted into the sudden glare of white electric lights.

Widowmaker was covered in blood. The upper-left of her bodysuit had been torn away entirely; the material must have provided more protection than its appearance suggested, because the skin beneath was merely bruised, a strange green-black shade Lena had never seen before. Elsewhere, blood stained the fabric and streaked dry across her skin. She held her rifle in one hand, barrel pressing into the floor, almost like a crutch. It was all Lena could do not to jump up in anticipation of the collapse that was surely coming.

‘What happened?’ Lena whispered.

‘The monitoring systems have been temporarily disabled,’ Widowmaker said, and it took Lena a moment to realise she was answering the first question. ‘They will come back online in three minutes. You have until then to activate the opt-out protocol. The choice is yours.’ She smiled and then, as if her body had simply been waiting for this transfer of responsibility, crumpled to the ground.

Even expecting it, Lena was barely fast enough to get to her in time. The rifle nearly tripped her up, and she grimaced as Widowmaker transformed into a dead weight in her arms. It took her the better part of her three minutes to manoeuvre the taller woman into bed, wincing as blood smeared on sheets she’d washed barely a week ago. By then, her mind was made up.

‘The opt-out protocol,’ Lena muttered to herself. ‘Right. More like the copping off protocol.’ The security panel was by the door. She keyed in the necessary commands. ‘You better appreciate this, luv, ‘cause I’m not gonna hear the end of it for _weeks_.’

Time pressure off, she stopped to appraise the situation: her long-term nemesis lay in her bed, half-naked and covered in what Lena was fairly sure was someone else’s blood. ‘Pretty sure this is the start of _someone’s_ fantasy,’ she said. Then, ‘I’m still talking to myself. Fight insanity with insanity, eh?’ And finally: ‘ _Bollocks._ ’

*

Emily answered on the seventh ring. Her face was a small oval haloed by unruly orange. ‘Lena? What time is it?’

‘I’m sorry, love, something came up and…’ Lena let out a breath. ‘This is a I-need-help-and-I’ll-explain-later sort of situation, is that okay?’

‘You know it’s okay,’ Emily said. She straightened, looking more alert, then ruined the effect by yawning. ‘Better hurry up, though.’

‘Right. You know that South Korean thing you worked on? The state visit?’

Emily frowned in confusion. ‘Sure.’

‘Do you still have any of the files for that? Say, files that might contain certain people’s contact information?’

The frown deepened. ‘Yes,’ Emily said. ‘But you know that sort of thing is classified.’

Lena put on her best sheepish grin.

‘… which means this better be a life or death situation.’

Lena glanced over at her bed. Widowmaker hadn’t moved once, and it had taken more than a little observation to confirm she was still breathing. ‘I’m pretty sure it is, love.’

‘All right,’ Emily said without missing a beat, and Lena tried her best to beam silent gratitude across the video link. ‘What do you need?’

‘Well,’ Lena said, the relief of a plan in progress flushing her with mischief, ‘I was thinking it’s been a while since I went on a hot date…’

Emily was already pulling a filing cabinet open. ‘Hana Song’s number,’ she said. ‘Got it.’

*

‘I so do _not_ have a thing for skin-tight outfits,’ Lena told her console once the screen had gone dark. It had taken her a little while to come up with a plan of action, and the little window in her room was starting to let sunlight in.

‘A pity. I seem to be left with little else.’

Lena jumped. The exhaustion in Widowmaker’s voice brought guilt bubbling to the surface. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m not taking this seriously.’

There was half a laugh from the bed. ‘I would be more worried if you were not a little playful. I have put a lot of thought into understanding you, Lena. I know how you work.’

‘Well, great, I’m glad, because I haven’t the foggiest what’s going on in your mind.’

Widowmaker hummed a fuller laugh. ‘And I am happy for you.’

‘What?’

‘It is a good sign, non? To be so long with someone and still find flirtation comes so easily?’

Lena flushed. ‘Appreciate the thought, luv, but how ‘bout we stop there?’

Widowmaker turned luminous eyes on her. ‘Have I made you uncomfortable?’

‘I don’t—object, necessarily, to this kind of thing. But, look.’ Lena sighed. ‘Until tonight, you were Talon’s most dangerous agent. For all I know, you still are. And yeah, maybe in the last couple weeks I’ve started to think that there was more to you. I sympathise with you, y’know? And that’s why I want to help you. Being honest, though, you still haven’t told me anything. So.’ She met Widowmaker’s eyes. ‘I’m gonna get you somewhere safe. I’m gonna listen to what you have to say. And after that, maybe, we can make casual conversation about my girlfriend. Not before. All right?’

Widowmaker was inscrutable. ‘Very well.’

‘Good.’ Lena let out a breath. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go be Tracer.’

*

In truth, there wasn’t much for Tracer to do that day.

It was still the middle of the day in South Korea. She knew she should wait until after the working day was over, and that left her at a loss. It was strange: months spent foiling Talon at every turn, and then their arch-enemies had gone and blown themselves up. Suddenly she had to remember what else it was that Overwatch did.

Tracer resisted to urge to return to her room and interrogate her guest about just how that blowing up had taken place. Instead she stalked the ready room.

‘The opt-out protocol is still active in your room, Agent Tracer.’

Tracer stopped mid-stride. ‘Yup,’ she said. ‘And I’d like it to stay that way, thanks very much, Athena.’

‘Very well. I was merely checking you hadn’t forgotten to switch it off.’

Tracer let out a breath. She was glad it was the AI that had confronted her about it, and not one of her human friends. Someone would have been in the security room, keeping an eye on the feeds – an old-fashioned practice with Athena watching over them, but no one quite trusted computer systems to stay up as they should – and whoever it was had most certainly noted the moment her feed went dark.

‘You know, none of your colleagues have activated the protocol in months. I think they have all discovered less obvious ways of… achieving their ends.’

‘ _Seriously?_ Et tu and all that. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?’

‘I am very good at multitasking, Lena.’

‘Isn’t this a wee bit unprofessional?’

‘Your status is currently listed as on-call. Therefore you are not strictly speaking on duty, and I am speaking to you as a friend, not a co-worker.’ Athena paused. ‘I can see you would rather drop the matter, however.’

‘Cheers,’ Tracer said through gritted teeth.

There came another, longer pause. ‘I hope you had a good night, though.’

Tracer threw an empty can at the nearest camera. By the time it hit, the blue light that indicated Athena’s attention was already out. It was bad enough that her friends were going to think she’d spent all night – and all day, apparently – shagging some girl. Did the base AI _really_ have to get in on the action? ‘You owe me one,’ she said to no one in particular.

At eleven am she decided she’d waited long enough. She returned to her room, pulled up the private phone line, and entered the number Emily had given her. It was not entirely secure – no channel out of the base was – but someone would have to suspect her to bother looking up her personal correspondence.

The number rang. The noise didn’t seem to disturb Widowmaker, who was once again sleeping. ‘How did you get this number?’

Lena blinked. There was no one on the screen, just a view of a ceiling. In the background came the tell-tale sound of pots banging together. ‘I charmed it out of a hapless employee at the Foreign Office,’ she said, more or less honestly.

‘Tracer?’ A moment later Hana Song appeared on screen. She was wearing a perfectly normal, not-skin-tight outfit and holding a wok in one hand. Lena filed this information away: Hana hadn’t struck her as a person who cooked.

‘The one and only.’ Lena gave her the rakish grin that had cut swathes through the girls of the RAF.

‘You realise this is my private number. If Overwatch needs me—’

‘Haven’t got the faintest clue what you’re talking about, luv. Winston has certainly never slipped up about the identity of his contact in the South Korean military.’ She winked. ‘This is a personal matter. Well,’ she amended. ‘Kind of. It’s a personal Overwatch matter.’

Hana was frowning. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to ask for your help.’ Lena turned the smile up a notch. ‘Only I can’t really tell you why.’

Hana tilted her head. ‘Sounds dodgy.’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Count me in.’

*

The Talon dropship was parked on the roof.

‘It’s invisible,’ Lena said. ‘You have an _invisible_ dropship.’

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow. ‘Obviously.’

‘But—how? I reckon we would have noticed by now if you lot were turning up in invisible ships.’

‘A prototype. Based on a personal cloaking device, scaled up. This is the only one in existence.’

Lena let out a breath. ‘Bloody well dodged a bullet, in that case. Shall we?’

It was a little strange, boarding the dropship: not so different from an Overwatch ship, but still different enough that she was glad Widowmaker had propped her rifle casually in one corner instead of keeping it with her by the co-pilot’s seat.

‘Wait,’ Lena said, the implication becoming clear. ‘You want me to fly it?’

The eyebrow again. ‘That is what you do, is it not? The autopilot does most of the work, of course, but I thought you might feel more comfortable being in control.’

‘It’s what I _did_ ,’ Lena said, but there _was_ something comfortable about the thought. ‘All right then. This should make parking easy, at least, eh?’

The first thing she did was enter her clearance code into the ship’s transmitter. Invisible dropship or no invisible dropship, she wasn’t about to take off without a way to stop Athena from shooting her down. Next she programmed their destination into the ship’s computer, adjusting the route slightly to avoid flying over the populated parts of Morocco. By the time she was done, she felt familiar enough with the controls that the ship didn’t feel so unnatural.

Take-off was virtually silent. Lena held her breath, but no alarms blared, no defences activated, and minutes later they were above open water.

‘Where are we going?’ Widowmaker asked. She was looking out the window on her side, watching the African coast slide past.

‘Rio.’

‘And what takes us to Brazil?’

‘Somewhere you can stay. Should be safe.’

‘Of course. Dos Santos.’

Lena glanced at her. ‘I know some people back in Gibraltar who would really love to know where you’re getting your information.’

Widowmaker smiled. ‘I have a friend who loves gossip.’

Lena rolled her eyes. ‘You’re right, anyway. More or less.’ Hana hadn’t strictly _told_ her whose penthouse she was sending them to, but Lena could put two and two together.

‘Why go to them? Him and Song? Why not Overwatch, directly?’

Widowmaker was looking at her intently, and something told Lena she already knew the answer to the question. ‘They’re young,’ she said. ‘My generation. Everyone else in Overwatch… they knew her. I can’t be certain they’d understand.’

Widowmaker nodded. She looked satisfied.

Lena slept, then, feeling more tired than she should have after a day spent waiting for things to happen. When she woke, the dropship was half an hour from their destination and requesting landing information.

The roof of Lúcio’s building was pleasingly flat. The dropship nestled in next to an air-conditioning apparatus the size of a small shed. Lena made triply sure the cloaking control was in the active position, then stood up and stretched. Her limbs ached after hours in the chair, but she still felt better than she had in days. She was never fully satisfied but when she could _do_ something.

The top-floor flat had roof access. Lena keyed in the code Hana had given her, and to her relief the door slid open without protest. Lights came on automatically, leading them down a set of stairs and a small hallway to the front door proper.

‘Hana said you were welcome to any clothes you wanted from the master bedroom,’ Lena said as she entered another code. ‘She also highly recommends the shower.’

‘Perhaps… perhaps I will heed her recommendation,’ Widowmaker said.

Lena smiled. ‘Take your time. I’ll wait.’

It only took three doors to find the kitchen, then another three appliances to find the water heater. It wasn’t a proper kettle, but one of those fancy Japanese devices that dispensed boiling water on demand.

When she turned around, there was someone in the room with her.

‘Most people have the good manners to scream when someone sneaks up on them.’ The woman was leaning against a counter, peeling a mandarin with a studied nonchalance.

‘You’d be surprised,’ Lena said through gritted teeth, ‘how much practice I’ve had these last few days.’ One of her guns was in her hand, unaimed but visible. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

The woman raised her hands, not in surrender but placation. ‘Whoa, whoa, chill. Just wanted to see how she was doing.’ The sound of running water started up somewhere in the flat. ‘She’s probably mentioned me. I’m Sombra.’

Lena grinned despite herself. ‘Not by name, she hasn’t.’

Sombra winced. ‘Well, consider that a freebie. Sign of my good intentions, you know.’ She paused, and the next words were stripped of bravado: ‘How’s she doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lena said.

Sombra nodded slowly. ‘Okay. But she made it this far. That’s good. Listen. You don’t know me, you owe me nothing, but can you do something for me?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Once things are settled, a bit. With her. If they’re settled. Come find me?’

Lena studied her. ‘And here I was pegging you more as the “I’ll find you” type.’

‘That’s work. This is different. Please?’ She was holding something: a blank business card with something scrawled on one side in untidy handwriting.

Lena took it. It was an address, somewhere in Rio. She didn’t know the city well enough to guess where. ‘I can give this to her, and if she wants to find you, I won’t stop her.’ She looked Sombra in the eye. ‘But I think you should leave now.’

Sombra raised her hands again. ‘Okay. That’s fair.’ She put the remains of her mandarin down on the counter. ‘One last thing, though,’ she said, the swagger back in her voice, and Lena knew instantly she was one of those people who simply couldn’t resist a parting shot. ‘Didn’t figure dos Santos as a penthouse kind of guy. Must be D.Va’s influence, don’t you think?’

*

Widowmaker was sitting at the foot of the bed, facing the huge windows with their view across the roofs of Rio. She'd changed and showered, and Lena felt herself warming: Widowmaker was wearing nothing but a men’s dress shirt, two sizes too large, and a pair of underwear in dark red lace. The shirt was unbuttoned. Lena tried to ignore the conspicuous lack of a bra.

‘You don't have to do that any more, luv,’ she said softly.

‘Do what?’

‘Try an’ distract me.’

Widowmaker laughed. ‘You give yourself a lot of credit.’

Lena flushed. ‘Well, you're the one sitting there in fancy knickers.’

‘The closet was mostly full of men's clothing. This’—she snapped the elastic of her underwear—’was among the least suggestive of the lingerie. I made do.’ Widowmaker’s lips quirked as she noted Lena’s eyes flicking back and forth, and she answered the unasked question: ‘The brassieres were all too small. I thought it better to go without.’ She tilted her head. ‘I can find something else, if I am making you uncomfortable.’

Lena closed her eyes, counted to ten, and made peace with the fact that she was more than a little attracted to her erstwhile villain. ‘No, no, it's fine. Wear what you like.’ There was nowhere else to sit, and she wasn’t about to spend this conversation hovering awkwardly. She sat next to Widowmaker. ‘How do you know?’

‘How do I know what?’

It had been an idle question, but now that she thought about it, an important one. ‘That—okay, this is gonna sound dumb, but how do you know that lingerie is suggestive? I mean, if you’re not her. I’m guessing that wasn’t exactly part of Talon’s remedial education for brainwashed assassins.’ Widowmaker descended into silence slowly, each part of her growing still until she was barely more than a mannequin. Belatedly Lena wondered whether the question might not have been insensitive. ‘I mean—if you don’t mind talking about it an’ all.’

Widowmaker blinked rapidly, her eyes settling on Lena after a few seconds. It was uncomfortably like an omnic powering up. ‘Talon tried to take Lacroix’s emotions,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘And they succeeded. Not just in dampening them, in putting them behind a wall, but in _excising_ them. They thought it would give them total control.’ Suddenly her voice was raw and brutal. ‘And it did. But they did not realise that the nature of a void is to want to be filled. They took Lacroix’s emotions, and in their place they got _mine_.’ Her breaths were coming quickly. If she had been anyone else, Lena thought, she would have been crying. ‘I have her memories. But they are devoid of emotion. I feel nothing for her life or the people who inhabited it. It is like watching a film, but without the talent of the actors to create something out of nothing.’ She laughed then. ‘So, you see, I know what it means to wear lingerie because I have seen Amélie do so, and I have seen what followed.’

Lena wet dry lips. Did it make someone a voyeur, to recall the memories of a past life? It wasn’t a question she was prepared to consider. ‘And the thing you said, about me an’ Emily… that was based on her life?’

Widowmaker inclined her head. ‘I cannot even begin to imagine the emotions, but if there is one thing I can recognise from the outside looking in, it is a happy relationship.’

Lena tried not to examine the implications of that statement too closely. It was hard enough knowing this woman had killed—her husband? That wasn’t quite right, but how else to put it? The act was chilling no matter how she looked at it, and she had no desire to hear about how happy they’d been as a couple beforehand.

‘I thought we were not to have this conversation. Not until we are finished with the other.’ Widowmaker’s smile was a tiny thing. ‘Are you sure you are not growing too comfortable around me? Are you even aware of what you let slip?’

Lena’s heart beat faster. Her name: Emily’s name. Widowmaker hadn’t known it. _Talon_ hadn’t known it. ‘You wouldn’t—I mean—it’s not like that any more. You don’t have to threaten me, y’know.’

Her heart nearly stopped when Widowmaker placed one hand on hers. In all the months she’d known her, Widowmaker had been a creature of reaction. She was patient. She waited. She never made the first move. Lena looked down at their clasped hands and squeezed, very carefully, as if blue fingers might shatter beneath the pressure. When she looked up again she found herself caught in Widowmaker’s gaze.

‘You are quite right, chérie. It is not a threat. I simply wish to spare you the turmoil of growing too close, and tearing yourself away again. Wait until you hear what I have to say. Then we may speak of other matters, if you still desire to do so.’

Being on the other side of that request was like reaching the top of a staircase, only to find you’d miscounted the steps. Lena felt off-balance, vertiginous. ‘All right then.’ She licked her lips. ‘Tell me.’

‘I killed them,’ Widowmaker said in a voice that was neither pleased nor horrified. ‘I killed them all.’

It took Lena a moment to understand. She had thought – everyone else, to her knowledge, still thought – that the fighting in Siberia had been between factions of Talon. She had imagined Widowmaker taking the opportunity to escape, perhaps enlisting her friend to fake her own death. It all seemed naïve in hindsight. ‘All of them?’ she said, carefully.

‘Four hundred and seventeen,’ Widowmaker said. ‘I lost track, of course, but I knew how many were down there to begin with. It was easy. I had access to their systems. I knew exactly where every last soldier was.’ She looked at Lena. Her eyes were unreadable. ‘Not that they were all soldiers.’

‘Why?’ The word came out in a whisper.

‘Because it was the only way.’ Widowmaker paused, looking back out over the city. The evening sun set glass rooftops on fire. ‘You must understand, Lena. I did this by choice. There was nothing of Talon in me when I made the decision. I killed four hundred and seventeen people, for me. For my benefit and no one else’s.’

Lena’s mouth was dry. ‘Couldn’t you have…’ She trailed off. It was impossible to imagine what else might have been done.

‘No,’ Widowmaker said. ‘I knew how valuable I was to them. I knew that any half-measures would only put me under the control of a different group. I had to destroy everyone who knew who I was. Who knew how to control me. I had hoped O’Deorain would be there in person. She rarely leaves her laboratory, but I thought perhaps…’ She paused. ‘No matter. Her lieutenants are gone. Her Talon liaisons are gone. Much of their equipment is gone. It is enough.’

Lena fought for control over raging thoughts. By Blackwatch standards, such an operation would have been a success for the ages. She had to cling to that thought, to avoid the double standard of _good guys_ and _bad guys_. ‘How do you feel now?’ Her voice was more ragged than she might have wished.

Widowmaker pursed her lips. ‘You want me to say I feel guilt. Or perhaps remorse. But I do not know what remorse is like.’ She considered. ‘Perhaps, if I had known there was another way, to accomplish the same goal while killing no one? I would have liked to take that path. But that does not yet mean I regret my actions. No. Talon killed Lacroix, and I have returned the favour. The only question left unanswered is whether this is to mark the beginning of my life, or the end.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ The words were sharper than Lena had intended.

‘Just that. If you choose to turn me in, my life will end, one way or another.’

‘You can’t put that on me.’

‘But I must, Lena. I am cold, inside and out. It pleased O’Deorain to call me a sociopath. This is not a decision I can make myself. I wish to live, and so you must tell me whether I _can_ live with what I have done.’

‘This isn’t fair,’ Lena said. ‘You said you didn’t want anything from me but what I’d given you already.’

Widowmaker smiled sadly. ‘Times have changed, chérie.’

There was something, though, in what she’d said: something to latch on to. ‘You’re not a sociopath,’ Lena said, casting about for the right words. ‘You’re like… you’re like someone who’s been told to mix colours without knowing what _red_ and _blue_ mean. It doesn’t make you colour-blind.’ The words felt right, and she forged ahead. ‘You’re wrong about one thing, though.’

‘Oh?’

Before Widowmaker could react, Lena stood, pulling the other woman up with her. She was nearly a foot taller standing, which suited Lena just fine: it was easier to avoid distractions when she had to tilt her head up to see Widowmaker’s face. ‘You can’t make me decide for you,’ she said, ‘but I can help you decide for yourself.’ Lena’s heart was pounding, and before the impulse left her, she eased the shirt off Widowmaker’s shoulders and wrapped her arms around her, letting her hands run down the smooth skin of Widowmaker’s back. It was a curious sensation: cool to the touch, yes, but also soft and supple and _alive_. ‘You can’t _take_ my body heat,’ she whispered, ‘but I can choose to share it with you. You can be warm, inside and out, because you don’t have to do it alone.’

There was a hitch in Widowmaker’s next breath. Slowly, so slowly Lena first thought she was imagining it, Widowmaker returned the embrace. It was not quite the intimate comfort of skin on skin, but one hand ran through Lena’s hair, and she shivered into the touch nonetheless. ‘What would Emily say if she could see you now?’

Lena laughed, muffled, into Widowmaker’s shoulder. Then she laughed again, and there were tears in her eyes, as if all the emotions Widowmaker did not yet know how to feel were being channelled through her instead. ‘She’d tell me I had a heart two sizes too big for my body,’ she said, ‘and then she’d tell me to be careful.’ Lena grinned. ‘Then she’d correct herself, because I’m incapable of being careful, and tell me to recall out of any careless mistakes. And finally, she’d tell me she trusted me.’

Widowmaker pulled back a little. ‘And have you made any careless mistakes?’

Very slowly, very deliberately, Lena kissed her.

Lena had become very good at judging time since the accident. At times, it felt as if her life proceeded in three-second increments, as if part of her was always calculating how far back she could go if she had to. She held the kiss for four long seconds.

‘No,’ she said once they’d pulled apart. ‘Not tonight, love.’

**Author's Note:**

> I really like writing Overwatch fic in this style, because I think the character interactions are by far the most important thing and the exact details of the lore best left unspecified... What do y'all think? Does it work? Is it distracting if the background stuff isn't super developed? Let me know!


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